


Transcending Realities

by ShimmeriMage



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-10
Updated: 2019-02-01
Packaged: 2019-09-15 14:53:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,108
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16935312
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShimmeriMage/pseuds/ShimmeriMage
Summary: A journey through the latter half of Season 6 and onward that dives deep into Shiro and Keith’s experiences throughout canon events and beyond. Not so much a fix-it fic but a demonstrate-how-it-actually-works fic.





	1. All Good Things

**Author's Note:**

> This is not so much a fix-it fic but a demonstrate-how-it-actually-works fic. No one got rid of Sheith, or undid anything that came before, they just got better at hiding it, and I’m pretty sure that started during season 7. This fic here is what I believe happened behind the scenes.
> 
> Please note that, like Voltron and its characters, much of the dialogue in this piece is not my own. It’s taken directly from the series. I’ll point out where everything is in the author’s notes as we go. 
> 
>  
> 
> We start with Season 6, Episode 6: All Good Things (maybe one day I’ll write a prequel to this, but I think before this point their relationship does a pretty good job of speaking for itself).
> 
>  
> 
> For anyone who read this chapter when it first went up, it’s been edited a bit to include a little more exposition of Shiro’s time in the astral plane.

“Keith.” 

Shiro tries to reach him. He’s here. Not just inside of Black physically. He’s here, actually _here_ on this plane. 

For a moment, if moments exist where he is - where they are - Shiro is afraid that Keith has died too. But that isn’t right. Keith is here, but he still feels so far away. He feels anchored in all the places where Shiro feels free floating. He’s tethered to something. The physical world. A body. Blood and bone and breath. 

“Keith.” 

Keith’s eyes open. His consciousness opens. To this place. To Black. To Shiro. There is shock emanating from him. But, at what? At where he is? At who it is that’s calling to him? 

“ _Keith_.” 

Recognition sets into those familiar features. There’s a flicker of something, hope, and Shiro almost feels like he can reach out across this astral plane and touch it. 

“Keith.” 

Just as quickly as it comes, the hope is replaced by anger, and the anger feels even more solid to Shiro than the hope did. He’s not sure if solid is good or bad, but he also isn’t completely sure what good and bad mean anymore. They don’t seem to be fully realized concepts here. They blur together and the distinction between them doesn’t seem as important as he remembers it being before. 

“Where are you, Shiro? Show yourself.” Keith activates the black bayard. His bayard. 

Shiro was wrong. It isn’t anger. The anger is masking something. Something deeper. Keith is afraid. 

Shiro wants to do what he’s always done. He wants to ease that fear, to reassure Keith. “I know this must be confusing for you.” 

“What is this place? Where are we?” Keith is panting now. “You- you were trying to kill me.” 

He’s hurt. Not just physically. That burn, slashed across his cheek, it isn’t the only one the clone gave him. 

“The others - you said you...” The words don’t come out. Keith looks like he’s choking on them. 

Shiro wants to explain. He needs to, and his voice might be enough for that. Keith hears him, knows it’s him. He might believe what Shiro has to tell him, but Shiro wants more than for him to believe. He wants to break this to him gently. What he wants is to be able to comfort him through what he has to say. 

It’s been so long since Shiro has had a body, so long since he’s understood what a physical form even feels like or what he would do with one if he had it. 

Touch Keith. That is what he would do. Grasp his shoulder. Hold him. That seems right. 

Except he can’t touch Keith here, but maybe if Keith could at least _see_ him... It would at least be something. 

Shiro draws deep from what’s left of himself. He draws from Black, and he draws from Keith. 

Keith gasps, and Shiro knows that it’s worked. 

“I’m not here to hurt you,” he tells him, but keeps his distance. “Everyone is fine. Just let me explain. The thing that attacked you wasn’t me. Since my fight with Zarkon I’ve been here.” 

“When you disappeared?” There’s less fear in Keith’s voice, but the uncertainty and apprehension are still there. For a moment, he reminds Shiro of the kid he met all those years ago. Not the obstinate, hot-headed “discipline case” that everyone else knew him as but the brilliant, talented, _lonely_ kid who it seemed only Shiro could see. 

“Yes.” Shiro wants to tell him the truth, or the truth as he understands it. Things are... _cloudy_ here, but there are moments of sharpness. Moments of clarity and action. Moments where he’s felt almost alive again. 

He was there when Keith sat in Black’s cockpit for the first time. He heard Keith’s quiet prayer and answered it. 

_”I know you wanted this for me, Shiro, but I’m not you. I can’t lead them like you.”_

_’No, Keith, but you can be better.’_

Even without Shiro’s encouragement Black still would have roared to life. She had wanted this for Keith just as much as Shiro had, although looking back he can see plainly that Keith wasn’t ready for it then. Not like he is now. 

Shiro has a distant sense that Keith has grown not just in maturity but physically, too. Maybe more than he should have, but he also believes time passes differently here inside of Black. It’s shorter, somehow. Like it stretches out across the universe, taking up more space than it does anywhere else. He thinks maybe it’s slower than it is for everyone outside of this place, like they’re all growing older while he’s grown stagnant. Floating. Existing but not living. 

“I didn’t know where I was or how much time had passed,” Shiro explains because he knows Keith won’t be here for as long as it took him to figure it out himself. “My physical form was gone. I existed on another realm... I died Keith.” 

The whites of Keith’s eyes are blown wide, and his pupils draw in on themselves like collapsing stars - like the hope has been sucked from them and spat out the back end of the universe. 

Shiro wants to return it to him. “But the black lion somehow retained my essence.” He says it like it means something better than dead. 

“Is that where we are? In the black lion’s consciousness?” Keith is smart. So smart. 

There’s so much more he has to say, but Shiro feels the weight of the physical plane pulling at Keith and pulling at the energy Shiro has drawn from him. He says what he can, “I tried to warn the others about the imposter while on Olkarion, but our connection wasn’t strong enough...” 

He knows now that it wasn’t strong enough because Keith wasn’t there. It doesn’t mean that the others meant any less to him, but he does think that it means Keith meant more. _Means_ more? 

Did the feelings of dead souls die with them? 

Shiro feels Keith begin to fizzle away. The smallest tingle of warmth he’d felt, fading. He’s cold, so cold. He hadn’t realized how cold it is here until now. 

He’s flickering. Maybe it’s only possible for him to appear at all now because it’s Keith who’s here, and now that he’s regaining consciousness, Shiro isn’t able to hang onto this spectral appearance. 

“Shiro? Shiro!” 

There’s so much more Shiro wants to tell Keith, but now even his voice is gone. And Keith. Keith is gone, too. 

He can’t see him, but he can still hear him. 

“You saved us,” Keith says to Black. His voice is farther away but more solid. It leaves an impression in the air inside of the command center. Shiro even feels it where he is. 

He reaches out, expanding across Black’s consciousnesses. He tries not to leave any pieces of himself behind. He manages not to stretch himself too thin and then there he is. Keith. Shiro feels him, farther away, different than when he was here but still with him, in a way. Even if that way is only one sided, Shiro will take it. 

Keith is hailing the Castle of Lions, and Shiro can hear Lance and Allura responding. He hears their questions, about what happened... about _him_. 

“I got him,” Keith tells them, “but not the Shiro we know.” 

Shiro doesn’t believe he has a heart anymore, but he thinks he can feel another piece of it breaking off. It feels like an echo, like a phantom limb - like how he still felt his arm, his real arm, even after he’d lost it. His whole body feels that way now - like it should be there, like it is when it isn’t. 

Like the leader Shiro always knew he could be, Keith shelves their questions and tells them that Lotor needs to be their priority now. He’s even learned how to put Shiro on the back burner. 

Shiro starts drifting again, unsure if he’s being pulled or letting go. Maybe both. Probably both. Falling, floating, in a body he can’t quite feel. 

“Shiro,” Keith’s voice pulls him back, “if you’re here, I could use your help.” 

_Anything._

_Everything._

“I need to get to the team before Lotor.” 

Shiro will do whatever he can. Keith so rarely asks for help. He wants so badly to give it to him. He needs to. But what he can do isn’t much. Keith doesn’t realize it. He never did. But it’s _him_. He’s the one with the power. He’s the one that can help Black get to them in time. 

But it’s taking too long. They both know that somewhere across the universe the others are facing off against Lotor. Keith is doing everything he can, pouring every ounce of himself into the controls at Black’s helm and sweating with the effort of it. 

But that’s just it. 

He’s had it in him all along. It doesn’t have to be this hard. 

“Shiro, I have to get to the paladins. I need your help.” 

_No, Keith, you don’t._

“Shiro.” 

_You can do this, Keith._

“Shiro.” 

_Keith, I believe in you. You just need to believe in yourself._

“Shiro!” 

He’s here again. Keith’s back. And just like that, Shiro is too. 

He doesn’t keep his distance this time. 

He‘s by Keith’s side and he grips his shoulder. He almost feels it, like a memory in his palm. Solid. Sure. “Keith, you can get to them,” he tells him, just as confident, just as sure, “but you must see them first.” 

“But how?” 

“See through the lion’s eyes.” He looks out across the glittering expanse. He looks out across Black. He wills Keith to look with him, reminding him, “Patience yields focus.” 

And then, side by side, they are glowing. Black is glowing. Everything around them is on fire. 

“I see them.” 

The rush of feeling Shiro gets is greater than anything he’s felt here before. It’s all encompassing. It’s awe. It’s hope. It’s life. 

Lance’s voice comes through the comm. “Keith! How did you get here so fast?” 

It’s clearer than anything Shiro has heard in the lion’s cockpit yet, and when Keith answers, Shiro almost feels like he’s right there beside him. “I had some help.” 

Shiro smiles and feels it. 

“Now hurry. We don’t have much time. On me, form Voltron!” 

Keith is just fine. He’s everything Shiro saw in him as a leader and more. He can do this - not just the battle with Lotor but all of it. Any of it. Whatever is needed. He’ll be fine, and the others will be fine because of it. 

Shiro can let go. Keith doesn’t need him anymore. The others don’t need him. The universe is in capable hands, and he can give in to the pull of the ether. He can scatter across Black’s consciousness and beyond. Out and into the universe. Away. Above. 

But. 

Shiro doesn’t want to let go. He knows they don’t need him, but _he doesn’t want to go._

He can’t remember the last time he did something because it was what _he_ wanted. 

Kerberos? Did that count? It feels like a thousand lifetimes ago. 

The pull of the ether is still there, but Shiro can’t deny that he feels more solid, more connected. To reality. To the physical plane. Through Black. Through Keith. 

It’s like he’s been given renewed life, and he has it in him now to hang onto that life. He doesn’t know for how long or for what, but he digs in. He hangs on, and he _fights_.


	2. Defender of All Universes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Season 6, Episode 7 from Keith’s perspective

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Be warned, even though the events below transpired during Season 6, Season 8 epilogue spoilers are ahead. Watch out for _that_ iceberg.

Keith always knew that this wasn’t the end. Back at the cloning facility, he knew that the fight wasn’t going to end with his or Shiro’s death. What he did, throwing himself over the edge of the collapsing structure to stop Shiro from falling off and careening into space, that wasn’t some act of self-sacrifice. It wasn’t Keith’s way of surrendering to a fate spent floating through space and holding onto Shiro, frozen and crystallized together for the rest of eternity. How beautiful. How poetic. How fucking _tragic_ that would have been. 

Yeah, no. 

Keith _knew_ that they would both live because he had seen it. 

Two years spent in the Quantum Abyss tends to show you a lot even if you can’t always make sense of what it is you’re seeing. Unlike the vision of the battle at the cloning facility, which had to happen for Keith to understand it, there was at least one vision of the future that was unmistakable. 

Shiro, at his wedding. Shiro getting married. At some future place and time, Shiro is going to be wed, and Keith is going to be there to witness it. 

When he tumbled over the edge, reaching for Shiro’s - or, he supposed, _not_ -Shiro’s - hand, desperate and clutching it with every ounce of strength he had left, Keith knew they would survive. He was simply doing the only thing he could think of to make that happen. He was doing what he’s always done, what he’ll always do. He was doing what he needed to for Shiro to make it to his happy ending. 

When he thinks of it now, however, in the quiet of Black’s cockpit he realizes that what he saw could very well have been the marriage of a Shiro clone. Even if all those at the facility were destroyed when it went down in smoke and plasma, it doesn’t mean that no more of them exist. 

But still, regardless, Keith didn’t think that far into it during the moment. He didn’t have the time for it then, and now it doesn’t matter anymore. They lived. Black saved them. 

Well, Keith lived and the healing pod is keeping not-Shiro’s body alive while Black hangs onto actually-Shiro’s soul. 

Okay, fine. 

After a little time to think, he’s not so sure anymore that this isn’t the end for Shiro, but he refuses to give up. How could he when Shiro, the real Shiro, would never give up on him? 

Black is still touching down onto the planet’s surface, and Keith is already out of his seat. He’s pulling the clone’s body from the pod and into his arms and carrying him from Black’s mouth and down onto the ground, refusing to waste any time in getting him to Allura who is jogging to meet him from where Blue has settled. Keith is glad for her urgency because if anyone can do anything for Shiro now, it’s Allura. Allura whose father created the lion that harbors Shiro’s soul. Allura who seems to hold all of the secrets of the universe now. Allura who has already shown them all things they never dreamed possible. 

Keith doesn’t know what happened at Oriande, there hasn’t been time to share it, but he knows it had to be something big. Even before Oriande there was something about being around Allura that inspired and invigorated. It was like some creative energy thrumming inside of her and pulsing outward into everything she touched. But when he returned from the Abyss there was no mistaking that some new change had occurred in her. Keith doesn’t know if it was something everyone feels in her presence now or if his own ability to sense it has anything to do with his Galra heritage, but it is clear that Allura is... _different_. Elevated. Evolved. No longer just a creative force but a force that creates. 

”This body is barely living,” he explains to her, “but Shiro’s spirit is still alive. It’s inside the black lion. I’ve heard him talking to me.” Allura isn’t at all surprised. She doesn’t even blink. It’s almost like she expected it. 

”He tried to tell me, but I didn’t realize. I’m so sorry Shiro, I didn’t know. I could’ve -“ Lance is choked up, so much so that he can’t even finish. If this had happened before the Abyss, Keith might have been angry, but not now. His anger isn’t important. It wouldn’t do anything to bring Shiro back, and bringing Shiro back is all that matters now. 

Still, Allura doesn’t speak, guiding Lance back with a gentle hand, and when she rises and makes her way to the black lion it’s like she already knows exactly what to do. Keith doesn’t just see it as the light travels from Black’s eyes down through his body and into Allura’s hands, he _feels_ it when Black releases Shiro’s spirit into Allura. It’s like Black was waiting for this, like he wouldn’t have trusted Shiro with anyone else and, whatever prejudices Allura had shown Keith and whatever grievances he’d had with her in the past, he realizes how grateful he is for Black’s trust in the princess because he feels that, too. 

As Allura makes her way from the lion and back towards their little group huddled around Shiro’s body - the body Keith recovered for Shiro and only Shiro - Keith doesn’t breathe. He is mesmerized and in awe of the light of Shiro’s soul emanating from Allura. It’s beautiful, but it feels fragile, like one ill-timed gust of breath might just blow him away and into the wind of this nameless planet. 

Keith wishes everyone else would hold their breath, too, like he can make it happen through sheer force of will alone. He’s fully aware, however, that everyone around them is practically sobbing. His own eyes, however, are dry. He can’t do anything. He can’t even cry until he knows that Shiro is alright. That he’s back. That he’s with them. With Keith. _Home._

It isn’t until Shiro bolts upright, gasping for air that Keith allows himself breath, and it isn’t until Shiro collapses into his arms, looking up at Keith that he feels his eyes well up. 

”You found me,” Shiro tells him, and Keith knows he would travel to the ends of the Universe to do so, again and again and again. 

”We’re glad you’re back, Shiro,” he answers and means _I’m_ glad you’re back. _I_ missed you. 

_I love you._

Keith wishes he had said those words to the right man. The one who is now inhabiting those eyes. Now that he sees it, Shiro here and now and present, he doesn’t know how he could have ever mistaken it before. 

”Rest.” Allura’s voice, gentle and soothing, coaxes Shiro to settle against Keith’s chest, and Keith’s arms curl around him, protective, drawing him close. 

It’s some time before Keith can let go and step away from the sleeping Shiro to join the others, but he knows they need him now. It’s what Shiro would do. It’s what Shiro would want him to do. It’s also what Keith wants, too, and when they speak about the loss of the Castle, he knows exactly what needs to be done. 

”We’re going home.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Woo, would still love a Beta so feel free to drop a line if you’re interested.


	3. The Journey

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The dialogue here is pretty much all taken directly from the show, though it’s from a few different episodes, all being from 7.1 or earlier.

Shiro feels lost again. Everything around him is masked by a haze so cloudy he can’t even see his own hand. Or any part of himself for that matter. But it’s not like it was on the astral plane. He knows he’s left because even if he can’t see his body, he must have one. He feels tied to it. Anchored. He feels heavy. So heavy. Like lead and iron sunk to the bottom of the East China Sea. 

For a moment, he wonders if he’s drowning but then the haze suddenly clears and he can see it - the sea. He’s there, in front of it and not inside of it, barefoot and running in the wet sand. When he turns around, there’s a young woman chasing him. She’s wearing porcelain skin, ruby lips and a smile, and as she clutches the wide-brimmed straw hat to her head so that it won’t fly away in the wind, she laughs. Shiro recognizes her. She’s his mother. But she is so young, and the footprints he leaves behind are so small. 

His footprints really should be bigger, and when he thinks it, they grow. The sand around them turns white and icy, and the warmth from the sun on his skin evaporates. He’s left shivering, sinking to the knee in snow with each step he takes. 

He’s escaped from enemy territory, a Galra cruiser, and stolen a fighter jet. For the second time in his life claiming his own freedom. It was too easy, much easier the second time than the first, but everything happened so quickly and the journey through the tundra has been so long and arduous that it was lost on him. And then, he thinks, he didn’t _want_ to know. He didn’t want to see the glaring warning lights or hear the shrill ringing of alarm bells that said what really happened - they had let him go. 

But that is easy for Shiro to see now, isn’t it? All he has is hindsight because _that didn’t happen to him_. None of it happened to _him_ , did it? 

It feels like a memory in the same way seeing his mother felt like a memory. Except, when he thinks of his mother and that beach, he doesn’t just feel the warmth of the sun on his skin or the grit of the sand between his toes - he feels joy and love and all of the things in between. When he thinks of the deserted ice planet he crash landed on, he feels the bitter sting of the snow crystals on his cheek and the heavy drag of his sodden boots, but he doesn’t feel lost or alone or afraid. He _should_ though. He should have been afraid that he would die there. He should have been terrified that he would never see home or Keith or the rest of the team ever again. Maybe he was, but if he had been, Shiro can’t remember it now. 

That’s because this memory doesn’t belong to him. Not really. It belongs to this body and it fills this brain, but he cannot claim it as his own. 

This body was stranded on Thayserix. This body was starving and dying of thirst after a week floating powerless in dead space. This body was found by Keith and the black lion. 

“How many times are you gonna have to save me before this is over?” These lips asked the question. 

”As many times as it takes.” Keith’s answer fell on these ears, and his soft smile was for these eyes. 

Not for Shiro but for his clone. 

His hair was long, too long. How did he not notice that when he learned how much time had actually passed? It wasn’t years, it was months. And the headache, it was incessant, and everything just felt... off. _Wrong_. 

Another memory comes to him - his own? It must be because he’s back at the Garrison and Keith looks so small sitting there in one of those hard-backed chairs against the wall. There are bruises blooming beneath his eye and at the corner of his mouth. 

“Hey.” Shiro tries to temper his voice so it is soft, comforting. He knows Keith is hurting, and he can see in the jittering of his legs that he’s ready to run. It’s a testament to how far he’s come that he hasn’t bolted already. 

”Look I know I messed up. You should just send me back to the home already.” 

”Keith, you can do this,” Shiro says it and believes it. “I will never give up on you. But, more importantly, you can’t give up on yourself.” 

Keith’s violet eyes are flares when they open. The words seem to shock him into stillness, and he’s quiet, absorbing what Shiro has said. There’s a moment when Shiro thinks he may have gotten through, but then Keith’s expression hardens as his defenses take over. “You don’t even know me,” he bites. 

”You’re right. I don’t. But sometimes we all need a hand.” 

There’s another memory now. It’s connected to this one, not by time but in meaning. 

Shiro is young, young like Keith was. He’s in his childhood bedroom. He’s studying with his friend. A boy. A boy with sandy hair and ink stains on the pads of his thumbs. A boy whose smile isn’t just in his eyes and his lips but his nose too. Shiro likes that smile and those eyes and nose and lips. He likes them a little too much, but when his friend leans in to kiss him, he wonders if maybe he likes them just enough. 

Then the housekeeper gasps from the doorway. 

And the next memory he jumps to is his father, purple-faced and shaking fists. His mother is there, so pale she’s almost translucent, a silent ghost that would fade into the background if you didn’t know to look for her. That’s how she was next to him - all the vibrant colors washed out to gray. 

There is shouting and there are words. Shiro doesn’t remember them as clearly as some of the other memories, and he doesn’t think he wants to because the sting of words like disgrace and abomination are enough to leave permanent scars the first time you hear them and they mean _you_. The message is clear, that if Shiro can’t be “fixed,” he’ll be disowned. He’s shipped off to the Garrison before he even has the chance to run away. 

He hears that woman - the same woman who Keith should have been able to trust to teach him and help him reach his potential - labeling Keith like that, _a discipline case_. It jars loose something sharp and painful inside of Shiro, and it makes him want to shelter Keith from the world. 

Shiro is once again in the Garrison’s hall outside the office with Keith, back in the earlier memory. He holds Keith’s gaze for as long as it takes, and eventually the hardened expression Keith is wearing turns from defiance to determination. He gives a small, spontaneous smirk and reaches out to shake Shiro’s hand. 

Shiro would never undermine Keith, and he never would have tried to take command of the black lion from him. He is the one who wanted this for Keith, and yet here is another memory coming to him - Keith relinquishing control, Shiro asking, obligated, “Keith, are you sure?” Shiro accepting his simple response of “I’m sure,” like it’s what he wants and expects for Keith to say. Of course it’s what Keith would say, but Shiro, the real one, wouldn’t just take it. He’d tell Keith to believe in himself. He’d tell Keith that he can do this. He can be a leader. He can be _their_ leader. 

But he doesn’t. He tries to take the black lion, and for the first time he’s shook by two jarring and incompatible memories. He’s a part of Black’s consciousness and he’s also physically at her controls. The two states war with each other. He’s simultaneously screaming through the void for Black to withhold control from this thing that isn’t him, while praying for her to grant it. He’s both relieved and devastated when these lips announce, “The black lion isn’t responding to me.” When they tell Keith, “It looks like you’re its true paladin now.” Yet, even with the contrasting emotions, there’s a common thread - both versions of him are proud, proud of Keith. 

When Keith tells him, “I’m no good at this.” 

He answers, “Yes. You are.” And not only does he believe it, he illustrates for Keith _why_ he believes it. He tells Keith, “The black lion has chosen you.” He says, “I’m proud of you, Keith,” and feels it. 

The Garrison fades away into nothingness. Everything is quiet. Still. 

And then he hears it, all at once and in stereo. Their cries are crackling from the speakers at the lion’s command center and pinging off the inside of his helmet, tinny but loud. So loud. They’re resounding in and around and _through_ him. He feels their anguish and their strain and the draining hope being sapped from them when they realize they’re fighting a losing battle. 

_”You trusted me once. Trust me again.”_

He feels the prayer leaves his lips. He feels himself spidering out through Black’s consciousness and urging her to grant it. Again he is of two minds, but this time they want only the same thing. And Shiro thinks that maybe the clone was never really as much of an imposter as he assumed from his view on the astral plane. The clone really believed he was Takashi Shirogane, and in so many ways, he thought and acted and, yes, maybe even felt like Takashi Shirogane. 

But then Keith leaves. 

”I need to be on that mission,” he says. 

”Shiro, you are the rightful leader of this team,” he says. 

”You proved it today by reconnecting with the black lion. It was always meant to be yours,” he says. 

And Shiro wants to scream because he’s dead. He wants to scream because it isn’t his and it isn’t meant to be, but there’s a voice in the back of his head that whispers, _‘Let him go.’_ Shiro would like to believe he would never listen to it, but he does. 

The words come out of his mouth too calmly, “Keith, if this is what you feel is right, then we won’t try to stop you, but just know that we’re here for you if you need us.” 

”I know you are, and I can’t tell you how much that means to me.” 

The way he embraces Keith feels right. It feels like them, fitting together in all the ways they should. But Shiro doesn’t change his mind. He doesn’t say, “Don’t go.” He doesn’t say, “Please stay.” Instead, he says goodbye. 

Somewhere between then and now the weapon that the Galra made him into, twice over and then some, has its searing blade pressed to Keith’s cheek. Shiro can smell burning flesh. The sizzle of it hits his ears and leaves an echo, replays on a loop. Again and again until it’s burned into his brain and leaves a scar there that matches the one on Keith’s face. 

He doesn’t want to do it, but there is no semblance of control in his movements. He’s a puppet on someone else’s strings. 

There are so many things coursing through him. Anger, shame, guilt. He doesn’t want this body. He _hates_ this body. 

He panics, wants out, and then everything fades. He’s alone now, safe from the memories. It’s peaceful here. Quiet, and Shiro thinks maybe he can finally get some rest. Without Black’s presence beside him anymore, nudging him to stay awake and whole and unscattered, he begins to drift.

**Author's Note:**

> It’s been so long since I’ve written fan fiction of any nature, and I’d still really, really love to find a good beta or two (I also could really use some feedback and encouragement to help me keep up motivation for regular updates in order to fully realize this work in as quickly as possible!), so if this sounds like something you might be interested in helping me out with and connecting over, please reach out!


End file.
